


The Last of These

by GhostoftheMotif



Category: Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, M/M, Magical Artifacts, Slow Build, Uneasy Allies, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-06
Updated: 2012-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-29 03:58:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostoftheMotif/pseuds/GhostoftheMotif
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thanks to the weregild paid for Mag's death, the fomor can't directly attack Marcone in retaliation without violating the Accords. That doesn't stop them from finding strategically placed clients or from selling Pandora's Jar to a Chicago bar whose clientele start becoming increasingly more worrisome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Waffles and Death

I consider myself to be a morning person. It has nothing to do with waking up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed or even liking mornings in general, because I’m bad at both those things. I consider myself to be a morning person because the denizens of crazy evil in my life tend to have the common decency to wait until the afternoon or evening to start breaking things. Sure, sometimes a panicked phone call replaces my alarm clock, but the sound of an intruder making the warning wards go all crackly rarely beats Mickey to the punch.

Now I was going to have to rethink that, and it was just one more thing offending my Morning Person sensibilities. I hadn’t even had my Coke yet, dammit, and if these guys could deprive me of that carbonated goodness, then they could damn well get a forzare to the face.

“Forzare!” I shouted, and it hit the first one in the face.

My intruders looked like overgrown Dobermans with jellyfish tentacles in those colors nature uses to shout ‘hey, poisonous’ in place of the fur on their backs. There was a satisfying squelching sound as force connected with gelatinous flesh. Jelly Dog One collided with some poor bastard’s Prius across the street from my apartment. Mouse gave me a vaguely reproachful glance over his shoulder for moving his target, but he caught up to it when it hit the ground and relieved it of its throat faster than it could roll to its feet. That was a bit of a relief. The things might have had a claws-teeth-poison combo, but they didn’t bounce back very easily.

Jelly Dogs Two and Three might have put up a better fight, but I never found out because someone chose that moment to mow them down with gunfire and then hit them with a sedan.

I blinked, and Mouse padded over on bear paws to sit at my side and tilt his head. I like to think we looked very vigilant and self-aware waiting on the sidewalk, watching bemusedly as a familiar driver pulled his semi-automatic back inside the car with the same nonchalance as someone adjusting a stubborn side mirror.

“I hate today,” I announced conversationally to the neighborhood at large. Mouse licked my hand, either in comfort or agreement or both.

Hendricks pulled up beside me and jerked his head at the passenger seat. “Dresden. We need to have a conversation.”

It took several minutes to argue me into the car, but I figured that it would have been easier to hit _me_ with the sedan than hit the jelly dogs, or hey, shoot me when I was occupied as he rounded the corner, so it was probably safe-ish, and somehow waffles and coffee were knowingly worked into the conversation, and hells bells, it was too early for this anyway. Harry Dresden: the wizard who’d get in a mobster’s car for some freaking waffles. I grumbled to myself as I buckled the seat-belt and hoped I shorted his radio out--- unless that pissed the big lug off while his gun was still on the middle console, in which case I might manage a passably convincing apology.

Mouse was lying across the backseat with my staff and didn’t seem bothered with Hendricks, which made me feel better about the situation than I would have otherwise. Mouse was a great judge of character, and I maintained that opinion even as he located a large chew toy in the floorboards and I considered he might have been bribed.

“You, uh, got a dog?” I asked as Mouse went to town on the Frisbee thing.

A heavy side-ways glance landed on me, but I guess he didn’t see any harm in answering the question. “Rottweiler.” Surprise, surprise. “And a jack russell terrier,” Hendricks added in a low voice, as if he’d followed my train of thought.

“Oh. Cool.” I paused and shifted uncomfortably in my seat, fighting off a mental image of a small dog trained to fetch clips instead of newspapers. “So…” I started but couldn’t think of where to take the sentence. Truth was, I’d never been alone with Hendricks before, and it was throwing me for a loop. This was the most I’d ever talked to the guy, and maybe only one of a handful of times I’d seen him outside the presence of Gentleman Johnny Marcone. I’m pretty sure I’d always assumed he’d had an off-button somewhere between those hulking shoulders and a special box that Marcone stored him in after hours. Maybe it even had a weapons compartment and special accommodations to keep the suit from getting wrinkled. The walls could come in black or pinstripe.

Hendricks saved us from the awkward silence with a pointed question. “You know about the fomor?”

My brow furrowed in confusion. “Fish people? Live in the sea?”

He shrugged. “Dunno about fish, but the boss offed one named Mag that looked like a frog.” A pause. “Mag had kids.”

I thought about it. “So… avenging tadpole?”

The corner of Hendricks’ eye twitched, and I wondered why I insisted on annoying large people with guns.

“Look, man,” I prefaced, my tone turning a little more serious. “All I want to know is what this has to do with me and if it’s related to my monstertastic wake-up call this morning.”

“You ain’t supposed to hear the first part from me.” Before I could contest that statement, Hendricks went on. “But the fomor made the things that came after you.”

“What’d I do?” I asked, a little offended. I mean, usually when someone sends things to kill me, I’d at least heard of them enough times to think vaguely sarcastic quips in their direction, or worse, I’d actually met them. I was pretty sure I’d never interacted with the fomor before, although if they were in the business of augmenting creatures into personal hitters, I could have feasibly crossed a client. Okay, less like feasibly and more like probably. I tended to make people/beings of that caliber angry or nervous. I like to think of it as one of my better personality traits.

Hendricks parallel parked with more precision than I’d ever managed, and stepped out onto asphalt. We were in front of a diner. “You’ll hear it from Mr. Marcone after your breakfast. We’re going to his office after this stop.”

“No, we’re not,” was my automatic response, but a slammed door cut my protest in half. “Damn.” I turned in my seat to exchange a long look with Mouse. “What do you think?” He went back to chewing on the Frisbee, and his tail twitched in the most half-hearted wag I’d ever seen, but it wasn’t a no. I sighed and unbuckled my seatbelt. “Fine. We’ll go.” Another sigh, just to be melodramatic. “I’ll be right back. I’ll bring you some bacon.”

The promise of bacon got a considerably more enthusiastic response than the discussion of fish people sending genetically-altered creatures to kill me right before I got in a sedan driven by a the Crimelord of Chicago’s bodyguard. Yep, Mouse was definitely my dog.

Breakfast was that unique brand of awkward wherein neither party cares about said unique brand of awkward. Ever try to have a conversation about the quality of maple syrup with a guy who’s tried to shoot you? It’s not all that pleasant.

“What can you tell me about what the fomor are doing in Chicago?” I ventured as I drug a fork through some whipped cream in a passing imitation of a batarang.

Hendricks’ eyes met mine and snapped away before I’d registered the contact. “Not much. Like I said, the boss wants to be the one to tell you.”

I studied his expression. I wasn’t always the best at reading people, but I am a PI, and details were something I could handle. The guy in front of me was tense. “People are getting hurt,” I observed. “Killed.”

The answering silence was purposeful. Hendricks bowed his head and then lifted it again as he sipped his coffee.

I was going to interpret that as a nod. “Okay…” I breathed. “Okay.”


	2. Photographs and Pearls

When Hendricks and I got out of the stairwell on the floor of Marcone’s office-of-the-week, we passed another guy on his way to the elevator. As he waited for the _ding_ , he gave Hendricks a tired nod, and I took quick note of a few facts: his suit was missing a sleeve, his pant legs were soaked in something dark purple, and there were angry red welts on his face and hands. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who was having an eventful morning.

“Jelly dogs…?” I asked Hendricks after the guy slumped through the sliding metal doors, thinking of how nicely the welts would line up with poisonous tentacle-fur.

“Maybe,” Hendricks answered in hybrid human speech and grunt. “Don’t like to assume.” He jerked his head in the direction of the corner office. “But we’re about to find out.”

Under normal circumstances, I came into Marcone’s office in two conditions: angry or snarky. I’d pin-wheeled from snarky, straight through anger, and back to snarky during the car ride over, but when I got through the doors, I blanked. There was a mood about the place. There weren’t very many atmospheres that I couldn’t stick a perfect sarcastic landing in the middle of, but this one felt a lot like grief, and that shut me up. 

Marcone was standing at his desk, hands on the surface, bowed over a spread of some gruesome photographs that were grouped together like a horror bash collage. Gard stood at his side, tense, her grey suit dotted with the same dark substance I’d seen on the guy in the hall. He lifted his head when Hendricks and I walked in, and his expression gave me some sympathy pains for those gazelles in National Geographic documentaries about lions. Whatever was going on, Marcone was pissed. Despite the serious danger-vibes coming off him in waves, his voice was eerily unbothered when he said, “Good morning, Mr. Dresden.”

“Uh,” I articulated eloquently, not at all grasping for an impressive opening. “Morning.”

Green eyes snapped back to the photographs. “I understand you had an encounter with a number of fomor constructs.” Again, his tone was calm, but calm people didn’t hold themselves that purposefully still.

“Yeah, I did.” I got over my awkward freeze-frame and approached the desk. There was a reason Marcone wanted to talk to me, and it was something to do with those pictures. Whether or not I got involved with whatever was going on, I’d learned it was usually a good idea to hear him out. “They attacked my home this morning.” I shrugged a shoulder at Hendricks. “This guy hit them with a sedan, so it ended okay.”

“I’m pleased to hear it.” There was a long pause. He adjusted a pile of the photographs; I noticed that a few of them looked like medical reports, bodies laid out with notes in the margins. “I’m sure you are curious as to why I’ve asked you to meet with me.”

I called on my extensive selection of impersonations and selected the Spock eyebrow. “First of all, sending Cujo to pick me up doesn’t count as asking. Second of all, yeah, if my apartment getting attacked had something to do with you, ‘curious’ might be one of the tamer words used to describe me.”

True to form, Marcone overlooked my tone and continued with, “In the defense of my territory under the Accords, I have incurred a grudge that may put Chicago at risk. So far, my people have been able to contain the incidents, but they are becoming more numerous, and we have been unable to identify the source.” Another pause, complete with a wrist flick that resettled his watch. The motion kind of looked like the sort of thing people do to fill a silence. “My people are stretched thin. If I had received intelligence that you would be attacked, I would have sent a courtesy warning. As I have made repeatedly clear, you are of more use to my enterprise alive. One of my teams was able to intercept the pack that we now believe was on its way to your home. Only a few escaped them.”

My first impulse was to ask him what, exactly, he wanted from me, but I didn’t really need to. _May put Chicago at risk_. There was the root of it. I crossed my arms, heaved a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “So… basically, you want me to find your shiny new enemy while you’re out doing damage control.” He looked up from his desk. We locked eyes, something that I’d always had a feeling was more than a little defiant on both our parts. “People are getting caught in the crossfire, or you wouldn’t be trying to get me involved. You know that’s the only reason I’d agree. That, and apparently this fomor thinks I’d muck up his plans enough to try and kill me anyway.”

His mouth moved in a way that had aspirations of being a smile and fell short. “How astute.”

There were a lot of things I didn’t like about Marcone. Actually, that statement might be short-selling the dislikes. Fact was, though, scumbag status notwithstanding, he did have some priorities that lined up with mine. He hated seeing innocents get hurt, hated seeing people in the wrong place at the wrong time. He might describe it from a more analytical line of unnecessary losses, but the end result was people getting protected. That’s why he was approaching me. He knew I wouldn’t be able to bow up at the thought of doing job he’d presented to me, because this job would help Chicago.

“If I thought for a second you were just trying to save your own ass, I’d say no and work seperately.” I leaned on his desk, finally got a good view of those photographs. “But I know you better than that, so here’s the deal: I do this my way, you stay out of it. I’ll find where this is coming from, but it’s for Chicago, not you. You aren’t my client, and I’m not your employee. Clear?”

The not-smile thinned. “As ever.”

Gard spoke for the first time since we’d come in. “You _will_ need our assistance, Dresden. There is magic at work here that is not limited to the constructs. I have been unable to identify it, but it is slow, insidious. We are unsure of the effects.”

I think the flash of bothered confusion must have shown on my face.

Gard caught the expression. “It’s not in and of itself dark magic. I’m not surprised that you haven’t sensed it.” She reached down and picked up a manila envelope. “Everything we’ve found so far is detailed in here. It may benefit you to speak with Ms. Murphy as well. It’s likely that some of the cases mentioned have come to her attention.”

“So there’s two fronts? Jelly dogs and mystery magic?” I accepted the folder, tucked it into my duster, and hoped my voice didn’t sound rattled by the fact there was something out there that got a Valkyrie worried and escaped my radar.

“If ‘jelly dogs’ is your handle for the fomor constructs, then yes.” Marcone smoothed out a line of photographs and turned them in my direction. “The constructs have poison in their limbs---”

“---tentacle fur,” I corrected sagely.

“---that renders the victim temporarily paralyzed.” He pointed out thick, red marks on the skin of the bodies in several of the photographs, then singled out two in particular. The pictures were obviously post-mortem. The welts in these were punctuated with several puncture wounds. “Two longer, whip-like appendages on their back contain barbs. The poison in these is fatal. I have a team searching for an antidote, but the work is slow. The fomor combine already existing animal species. I’ve been told that once the correct counterparts are located, it will no longer be so critical an issue.”

“Um, Marcone? There’s a lot of pictures here, how many people---”

He interrupted me. I felt Hendricks kick me lightly in the heel and decided not to push. “In small numbers the constructs are not so great a threat, but they can be overwhelming when they attack in force. As they have been doing. At first, it appeared that only my people were being targeted, but it has since been shown that the constructs are easily distracted.” Marcone fanned out another stack of the photographs, fewer in number. “As Ms. Gard suggested, Ms. Murphy may be able to help you with the second matter.” 

They were… very clearly not the work of an animal. I was really glad this wasn’t a crime scene I’d been called in on. The cuts were clean, surgical. It was like looking at a cross section of a human chest. Skin and muscle were stripped away and the lungs removed, leaving the heart resting off-center, alone. A layer of it was also cut off in each of the victims, and there was…

“What is that…?” I asked, trying to make sense of the glossy dot in each left atrium.

“A pearl.” He pointed them out in all of the five pictures.

My eyes narrowed, and I tried to wrack my brain for a fit. “I don’t know of anything with this as its MO… Human killer, maybe.”

That not-smile came back. “These murders were committed by five different people. Five different people with no history of violence or instability. A connection between them has yet to be discovered.”

I blinked. That was about the only response I had.

“The only reason we know that this is somehow connected with the constructs is that one of the murderers happened to be a bystander in one of the clashes.” He produced a newspaper clipping of a college-aged guy with a smile that reminded me of Ramirez. “The constructs attacked the people around him, but would not come within a five-foot radius of the man himself. The next day, he murdered his mother in her home.”

I swallowed, letting my eyes rest a few moments on the photographs individually.

When I looked up, Marcone seemed like he’d been waiting for me to absorb it. “The fomor I killed was named Mag. He had ten children. I believe a son, Uld, is the contributor. He will have found a client to further his vendetta against me rather than attack outright. Is this sufficient information for you to begin your search?”

I felt the folder beneath my duster. “Yeah.”

Gard reached out and handed me a leather pouch. “There are rune blocks inside. Should you wish to get in touch with us, burn one. The red brand signify an emergency. The yellow is for urgent, but non-emergency. The white is the least urgent.”

I meant to make a comment on them trusting me to be able to set things on fire more than using a number, a contact, or locating them on my own, but I didn’t. Mostly I was realizing that this had to be serious if I was being given runes rather than being tailed, had to be serious if Marcone couldn’t spare the time to use his extensive network to uncover what he wanted me to do. Or maybe he’d tried, and they couldn’t find anything.

Either way, my morning was starting to look like a forecast of my immediate future.


End file.
